Choose your own adventure

Local thriller author makes it big by e-publishing

More than half a million readers can’t be wrong. That’s the number of e-books sold by Holt thriller writer Rick Murcer.

Murcer said he doesn’t know what
propelled his first book, “Caribbean Moon,” about a Lansing police
officer and a cruise ship serial killer, to both The New York Times and
USA Today combined print and e-book best sellers lists.

“At one point in July 2011, the book sold 9,700 (copies) in one day,” Murcer said. “It just exploded.”

Murcer, 58, held numerous customer
service jobs in the mortgage service business and credit collection
industry before he launched his career as a writer. He said after he
received no good responses from traditional publishers, he decided to
take the e-book path to publication.

In a time span of less than 20 months, he
published five serial killer thrillers featuring fictional Lansing
police officer Manny Williams. In the first book, Williams encounters a
serial killer on a Caribbean cruise. He said the difference between his
books and traditional thrillers is that his protagonist is a family man
and has what Murcer describes as “a moral character and moral fiber.”

“He loves his wife and is spiritual, but
not a Boy Scout,” Murcer said. He said that the advent of e-books and
self publishing allowed him to circumvent the traditional publishing
process, and he´s not alone — more than 400,000 books were self
published last year, according to Publishers Weekly magazine. Murcer
also knew that the traditional path didn’t fit his personality.

“I couldn’t wait 20 months to see a book published,” he said. “I wrote out of desperation. My goal was to make money.”

You do the math: 575,000 books ranging in
price from 99 cents to $3.99; it looks as if Murcer has achieved his
goal. He said that since his success, over 20 publishers have contacted
him to sign a contract, which he hasn’t ruled out yet, but there´s a catch.

“Some of those contracts are close to servitude” he said. “All they all wanted were the rights.”

Jenny Milchman, 44, followed the more
traditional process to publication, including 13 years of toil and
finding an agent before getting a publishing contract with Ballentine
Random House. She’s now on a seven-month, 45-state tour to promote her
debut book, “Cover of Snow” thriller set in the Adirondacks. She will
engage with Murcer in a friendly debate of the pros and cons of
publishing Friday at Schuler Books & Music in Okemos.

The New Jersey author said in reality her
debut book is her eighth novel in 11 years, but the first published.
Milchman parlays her profession as a psychotherapist into a thriller
which featuring what she calls “an ordinary family in extraordinary
circumstances.”

Murcer and Milchman may have taken
decidedly different paths to publication, but both are showing
remarkable results for first-time authors.

Writing & Publishing a Book Today
A Conversation between a Self-Published and Traditionally Published Author, with Rick Murcer and Jenny Milchman
Schuler Books & Music
1982 Grand River Ave., Okemos
7 p.m. March 9
FREE
schulerbooks.com